North East Create Growth Programme

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North East Create Growth Programme

North East Create Growth Programme

Does your business have creativity at its heart? (e.g.: design, fashion, architecture, film, broadcast, createch, gaming, immersive, publishing, music, theatre, art, heritage, craft, media).
Are you operating in Newcastle, Gateshead, North Tyneside, Northumberland, Durham, Sunderland, or South Tyneside?
Do you need help building your confidence as a founder, to make decisions on with investment, IP, business structures and growth plans?

Get Investment Ready

Get Investment Ready is designed to help creative businesses like yours. The programme will support you to develop the skills to secure investment so that you can achieve your ambitions for your company to grow. It is tailored to the needs of different creative disciplines, their respective markets, governance and distribution models.

About the programme

Stage 1

Stage 1 has been designed for businesses who want to grow and explore commercial investment pathways. Over six months, you will be placed in a cohort of businesses with access to: a course of workshops designed to unlock your commercial capacity and describe routes to investment and growth; two one-to-one mentoring sessions to define and refine your business ambitions; the to Ethical Equity Simulator – a unique piece of software that enables users to learn about the different types of investment from a practical point of view. Stage 1 closes with a diagnostic session with investment mentors to help you plan the next steps on your investment journey.

Stage 2

Stage 2 is an intensive investment readiness programme for businesses who are ambitious to get commercial investment. Over nine months, you will receive: on-going one-to-one mentoring to address your challenges and craft a bespoke nine-month journey for your business; a course of workshops covering business foundations and sector-specific challenges; opportunities to meet and pitch to investors.

How to apply

Fill in our EOI form to express interest in Get Investment Ready (make sure to read our FAQs before starting, reach out to the team if you have any questions).

Once the team has looked at your EOI they will be in touch to discuss if they think you are eligible for Stage 1, Stage 2, or to discuss different options and opportunities. Please allow up to 4 weeks for a response to the EOI. This is a rolling application and can be completed at any time; the team will advise on when the next Stage 1 and Stage 2 cohorts are running and check your availability.

Businesses may be invited into a diagnostic process, which will allow for our investment and business mentors to look at the potential of your business and its future invest-ability.

Stage 1

Stage 2

How to apply

Fill in our EOI form to express interest in Get Investment Ready (make sure to read our FAQs before starting, reach out to the team if you have any questions).

Businesses may be invited into a diagnostic process, which will allow for our investment and business mentors to look at the potential of your business and its future invest-ability.

FAQs

Please read our programme FAQs before submitting your EOI.

Contact Us

1. Email our Creative UK North East programme team at northeast@wearecreative.uk to start a conversation.
2. You can also complete the form below to be added to our mailing list and start receiving updates on the programme and other North East opportunities.

Delivery & funders

Who is delivering the programme?

The North East Create Growth Programme is a collaboration between the North of Tyne Combined Authority and Creative UK. Seven local authorities across Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Sunderland, Gateshead, Durham and Northumberland are also supporting the programme. In addition, sector specialists including: Generator, Sunderland Software City, North East Screen, New Writing North, and North East Local Enterprise Partnership are also involved.

FAQs

Please read our programme FAQs before submitting your EOI.

Contact Us

1. Email our Creative UK North East programme team at northeast@wearecreative.uk to start a conversation.
2. You can also complete the form below to be added to our mailing list and start receiving updates on the programme and other North East opportunities.

Who is delivering the programme?

What is the North East Create Growth Programme?

North East Create Growth Programme is a programme of support that focuses on helping founders of creative businesses to become more sustainable, build a growth plan and develop an investment strategy and proposition. The programme will look like:

Diagnostic meetings with investment mentors will precede your application and will support you to dig deeper into your business plans and finances to look at what scaling up might offer you and how investment can help. These are individual diagnostic meetings with one business / applicant at a time.
Online and in person workshops, events, and talks that provide overarching business skills and tools but also sector specific advice and resources.
Peer to Peer Learning Sessions that will give you a regular place to share experiences, explore challenges as a wider team and consider your place in the wider creative industry ecology.
One to One Mentorship that ensures you get bespoke advice and coaching to clarify your vision and business model. The mentor will support you to write business plans, proposal, and investment pitches ready for an investment application process.
Open events to learn from experienced founders, intensive development courses, multi-day residentials.

Who is delivering the programme?

The North East Create Growth Programme is a collaboration between the North of Tyne Combined Authority and Creative UK. Seven local authorities across Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Sunderland, Gateshead, Durham and Northumberland are also supporting the programme. In addition, sector specialists including: Generator, Sunderland Software City, North East Screen, New Writing North, Creative Fuse and North East Local Enterprise Partnership are also involved.

What is the timeline?

The programme launched in November 2022 and will run until March 2025. The cohorts will be staggered across the two years. The estimate dates are as follows:

Cohort 1: April 2023 application support. July 2023– January 2024 programme
Cohort 2: Sept 2023 application support. January 2023– June 2024 programme
Cohort 3: April 2024 application support. July 2024 – Jan 2025 programme

What is the eligibility for the programme?

To be eligible for the business support under the programme, you must meet the following criteria:

Registered as a business on Companies House
Trading or registered within one of the following areas; Durham, Northumberland, Gateshead, Newcastle Upon Tyne, North and South Tyneside and Sunderland. Please note, Teesside is not included in the geographic area for this programme.
Operating across one of the following sectors: advertising and marketing; architecture; crafts; design and designer fashion; film, TV, video, radio and photography; IT, software and computer services (including gaming); publishing; museums, galleries and libraries; music, performing and visual arts.

We are particularly keen to hear from businesses who have creativity at their core and who have a strong ambition to grow and improve their business performance. For example, this can be in the form of advancing a product range, growing an audience, diversifying revenues, improving profit margin, becoming self-sustainable, securing investment or developing commercial partnerships.

What is the application process?

Stage 1
If you would like to apply for the business support programme you need to complete an Expression of Interest (EOI) form found here. If you have any questions about the programme you can read our FAQ document or email the team at northeast@wearecreative.uk. We are also planning on hosting some webinars on the programme which we will advertise on this page and in our newsletter.

Stage 2

Once the team has looked at your EOI they will be in touch, either with an invitation to fill out a full application form to join the programme, or to discuss different options and opportunities. Please allow up to 4 weeks for a response to the EOI. This is a rolling application and can be completed any time. However if you have a preferred cohort, ensure you complete this before the cohort deadline. The estimated deadlines for the cohorts are as follows:

Cohort 1 – EOI Deadline April 2023
Cohort 2 – EOI Deadline October 3rd 2023
Cohort 3 – EOI Deadline April 2024

Stage 3
This diagnostic process will allow for our investment and business mentors to look at the potential of your business and it’s future invest-ability. The Creative UK North East team will also use the diagnostic process to understand how the business support programme needs to be shaped, which mentors we need to employ and how the broad range of selected applicants can support each other across sectors. If you are not successful, then the support team have a good understanding of how to support you next and where to sign post you to. At the end of the 6-9 Month programme your mentor and the Creative UK North East team will help you to build a pitch and proposal for investment and will be introduced to investment partners or other finance options. The key strand to the investment is through Innovate UK’s Funding Competition.

Contact Us

1. Email our Creative UK North East programme team at northeast@wearecreative.uk to start a conversation.
2. You can also complete the form below to be added to our mailing list and start receiving updates on the programme and other North East opportunities.

Meet the North East’s First Create Growth Programme Cohort

The first edition of our North East Create Growth Programme has officially begun. In June 2023, this intensive, six-month support scheme kicked off with a launch event held at Gateshead’s Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art welcoming each of the 16 creative businesses taking part in 2023’s inaugural cohort.

Applications are now open for DCMS Create Growth Programme competition 2. If you have questions about your application for Innovate Competition 2, please contact Innovate KTN. If you would like to notify us that you are considering an application to Competition 2, please fill in our Expression of Interest form mentioning the competition in the ‘Tell us how you plan to deploy investment’ field.

Unpack your Potential: Investment Bootcamp Explained
Our North East Investment Bootcamp aims to give founders everything they need to create a growth plan that’ll strengthen their business offering and help them secure investment. Across six months, 20 businesses from the region will receive a package of bespoke mentoring support and access to exclusive one-to-one time with investors from a range of backgrounds. Meanwhile, by being encouraged to work on their business rather than in it, they’ll be able to rewire their creative brain to ensure that both their company and creative goals are reached.
Eager to learn more? Programme Manager Jackie Boyd unpacks some key details with her interview with Simon Bland
Read interview

Stories from the programme

Meet the North East’s First Create Growth Programme Cohort

Meet the North East’s Second Create Growth Programme Cohort

The second cohort for the North East’s Create Growth Programme was announced as they met for for the first time in Newcastle’s Common Room.

Meet the North East’s First Create Growth Programme Cohort

Meet the North East’s Second Create Growth Programme Cohort

The second cohort for the North East’s Create Growth Programme was announced as they met for for the first time in Newcastle’s Common Room.

Contact:

Please contact northeast@wearecreative.uk if you want to start a conversation with us or have any questions and a member of the team will get back to you.

North East Create Growth Programme